“This is the core principle of capitalism: that the world is not really alive, and it is certainly not our kin, but rather just stuff to be extracted and discarded - and that includes most of the human beings living here too. From its very first principles, capitalism has set itself at war against life itself.”

— Jason Hickel, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

This text below was written by the professor and author Jason Hickel and can be found here.

“People often assume there is a natural connection between capitalism and democracy. Sometimes the two concepts are virtually fused together.

I always find this odd, because I value democracy. But there is nothing democratic about capitalism.

Under capitalism, decisions about what to produce, how to utilize the labour and resources of the nation, and what to do with the surplus that we generate—all of this is controlled overwhelmingly by the 1% who own the majority of corporate shares and pick the directors of firms.

This is pretty wild, when you think about it. Yes, we have national elections. But when it comes to the economic system, which affects all of our lives and determines our common destiny, it is totally undemocratic. In fact it is literally a plutocracy.

When you govern a system like this, it means that production is likely to be organized *not* around meeting human needs, or ecological regeneration, but around maximizing the profits and power of the 1%.

Not surprisingly, this leads to perverse results. We have an economy with extraordinary productive capacity, that massively overuses resources, but still fails to ensure that everyone has access to basic goods and services like healthcare, housing, transit and so on.

What is more, those who control this system then leverage their profits to manipulate national elections, through campaign finance and advertising, or through outright control over media outlets. Democracy cannot function under these conditions.

It doesn't have to be this way. We know, empirically, that when people have democratic control over production, they manage resources more sustainably, meet human needs more efficiently, and distribute surplus more fairly.

Decisions about what to produce and how to use our collective surplus should be democratically determined, rather than controlled by and for the interests of capitalists. The path out of capitalism is economic democracy.”

The wage data also reveals that, rather than delivering progress against poverty, the rise of capitalism was associated with a deterioration in human welfare across Europe.12 Following the peasant and worker rebellions in the 14th century, wages rose high enough to support a family of four above the ‘respectability’ line (i.e., $4.33, represented by a dotted line on Figure 5). But during the long 16th century wages plummeted, particularly in the European periphery, which was de-industrialized and reduced to a raw material supplier for English and Dutch manufacturers (Wallerstein, 1974, Moore, 2010a, Frank, 1978, Watson, 2017). In the core, wages only began to rise above their 15th-century level in the 1880s – around four centuries after the rise of capitalism and 50 years later than the standard narrative suggests. For most of the European periphery, poverty alleviation began later, “indeed, only in the post-World War II boom” (Allen, 2001, p. 435). This trend corresponds with the rise of organized labour and socialist parties across Europe (Pelz, 2016, pp. 83–102; Geary, 1981). As we shall see, progress in Europe has been much more extensive than elsewhere. Flush with surplus extracted from the colonies, European capitalists could respond to the demands of popular movements, and improve working class incomes, without significantly threatening the accumulation of capital (Cope, 2019, Lauesen, 2021). 

— Dylan Sullivan and Jason Hickel, Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century

"[C]onsider this: to bring everyone in the world above the income poverty line of $7.40 per day, and to provide universal public healthcare for every person in the global South at a standard equivalent to that in Costa Rica, would require about $10 trillion. That’s a significant sum, on the face of it. But notice that it’s only half of the annual income of the richest 1%. In other words, if we were to shift $10 trillion of excess annual income from the richest 1% to the global poor, we could end poverty in a stroke, and boost life expectancy in the global South to eighty years – eliminating the global health gap. And the richest 1% would still be left with an average annual household income of more than a quarter million dollars: more than anyone could ever reasonably need, and nearly eight times higher than the median household income in Britain. And that’s just income; we haven’t even touched wealth. The richest 1% have accumulated wealth worth $158 trillion, which amounts to nearly half of the world’s total."

- from Less Is More by Jason Hickel

The fact that the most important gains in human welfare have been won by labour unions and social movements, enabled by publicly funded research and secured by public healthcare and education systems, almost always in the face of determined and even violent resistance from the capitalist class, is never acknowledged [by the New Optimists]. (via Progress and its discontents | New Internationalist)

Just as Northern growth is colonial in character, so too “green growth” visions tend to presuppose the perpetuation of colonial arrangements. Transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy should be done as rapidly as possible, but scaling solar panels, wind turbines and batteries requires enormous material extraction, and this will come overwhelmingly from the global South. Continued growth in the North means rising final energy demand, which will in turn require rising levels of extractivism.

Jason Hickel in Political Geography access at LSE Research Online. The anti-colonial politics of degrowth

Book Group meets Saturday, January 14, 5pm on Zoom

We'll discuss the second half of LESS IS MORE by Jason Hickel. Email [email protected] for the Zoom link

“Jason Hickel shows that recovering the commons and decolonizing nature, cultures, and humanity are necessary conditions for hope of a common future in our common home. By extracting less we leave more for other species, other people and future generations, thus creating well-being for all. In an ecologically interconnected world, less is more.” -- Vandana Shiva

The core defining feature of capitalism is that it is fundamentally undemocratic. Yes, many of us live in electoral political systems, where we select political leaders from time to time. But when it comes to the system of production, where we spend most of our waking lives, there is little or no democracy. Under capitalism, production is controlled primarily by capital: large corporations, major financial firms, and the 1 percent of wealthy individuals who own the majority of investable assets. They decide what we produce, and how our massive productive capacities—our labor and our planet’s resources—should be used. And for capital, the primary purpose of production is not to meet human needs or to achieve obvious social and ecological goals, but to maximize and accumulate profits. That is the overriding objective.

Jason Hickel, The Limits of Basic Income

When myths fall apart, revolutions happen.

Jason Hickel, The Divide

“It is astonishing that the dominant belief in economics holds that no matter how rich a country has become, their GDP should keep rising, year after year, with no identifiable end point. It is the definition of absurdity. We do see this pattern playing out in nature, sometimes, but only with devastating consequences: cancer cells are programmed to replicate for the sake of replicating, but the result is deadly to living systems.”

— Jason Hickel, Less is More

CW for depressing climate stuff at the start, I guess. The book makes up for it, though.

Jason Hickel's "Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save The World" is excellent. Read it.

Link to the eco-economics book: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

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*Question marks because the person behind the playlist I got the music from (   • Vaporwave Chill Non-CopyRight Music! ...  ) didn't have the courtesy to credit the artists

#degrowth

"When it comes to human welfare, it’s not income as such that matters. It’s what that income can buy, in terms of access to the things we need to live well. It’s the ‘welfare purchasing power’ of income that counts. Trying to run a household on $30,000 in the United States would be a struggle. You can forget sending your kids to a decent university. But the exact same income in Finland, where people enjoy universal healthcare and education and rent controls, would feel luxurious. By expanding people’s access to public services and other commons, we can improve the welfare purchasing power of people’s incomes, enabling flourishing lives for all without needing any additional growth."

- from Less Is More by Jason Hickel

El decrecimiento puede funcionar: así puede ayudar la ciencia

Por Jason Hickel, VVAA | 30/01/2024 | Economía Los países ricos pueden crear prosperidad utilizando menos materiales y energía si abandonan el crecimiento económico como objetivo. La economía mundial está estructurada en torno al crecimiento: la idea de que las empresas, industrias y naciones deben aumentar la producción cada año, independientemente de si es necesario o no. Esta dinámica está…

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